Rock Band 3 supported more than four controllers. It made it significantly easier to switch into/out of "All Instruments" mode, whereas on the Xbox Three Hundred Sixty you would need to do a controller swapping dance in a precise order.

As for games on DVD, were there PS3 games on DVD? I thought they ditched DVD after the PS2.

DLNA was also not available on the PS3 at launch, either. That seems like something that would be relatively trivial to add in a system update.

While some of the omissions are baffling, I can't say I've ever used most of them on the ps3 outside of an initial test run. I have so many devices on my network that provide these functions, and the ps3 was never amongst the most capable. My biggest beef is the lack of support for the headset I have with a ****ing PlayStation logo on the side. I seriously hope support comes sooner rather than later.

Another PS3 media feature that’s missing from the PS4 is the lack of DLNA support, which will be disappointing to anyone who planned to use their PS4 as a media hub for their living room. These days, chances are good that you have some other devices hooked up to your TV that do largely the same thing. Still, it’s a disappointing rollback.

They specifically mention PCs in the FAQ but I suppose it's too much to hope that my NAS will work as it does with my PS3...I'll be very, very disappointed to see the end of that feature.

Rock Band 3 supported more than four controllers. It made it significantly easier to switch into/out of "All Instruments" mode, whereas on the Xbox Three Hundred Sixty you would need to do a controller swapping dance in a precise order.

As for games on DVD, were there PS3 games on DVD? I thought they ditched DVD after the PS2.

DLNA was also not available on the PS3 at launch, either. That seems like something that would be relatively trivial to add in a system update.

That’s the implication from an answer indicating that “physical PS4 games come on Blu-ray Disc, the best form of media capable of handling the large amounts of data that PS4 requires.” We suppose there’s no reason to continue to support plain-old DVD-based games any longer, but it’s still the end of an era if the format is on its way out for game storage.

The Ugly??! WTF? It should also be noted that the PS4 will also not play games that come on C64 cassette tapes. This is terrible!As game data footprints grow, I guess I was the only one not looking forward to "Please insert DVD #34 then hit X".

Quote:

The official Blu-ray remote for the PlayStation 3 won’t work on the PlayStation 4

We can understand why Sony would want to cut off support for the old DualShock 3 controller, which is missing a few key features that are built in to the DualShock 4. Removing the functionality of the old remote, though, is a bit more mystifying.

Looks like Sony is cutting features to hit that low price point. Which is fine; a significant portion of their customers have no problem with it, apparently.

From what I read, most of those features are really just implemented in software. Such as the DLNA support. WTF Sony. Stupid. Probably because they don't want competition for whatever streaming services will be offered/partnered with. Or the no external HDD. I can understand requiring a certain minimum level of performance before allowing a particular drive, but with USB3 you can easily get pretty much max speeds from any spinning disk, and very, very healthy speeds from SSDs. Another stupid thing.

Looks like Sony is cutting features to hit that low price point. Which is fine; a significant portion of their customers have no problem with it, apparently.

Everything listed except CD support is just software, so it's a fixed cost to implement, not a cost per-device. (Which explains the Blu Ray / DVD playback activation. Fewer activations, lower licensing cost) Putting in a laser that supports CD reading is an incremental cost that goes across every PS4 sold, though, and people who want to listen to CDs in 2014 will probably have some way of playing them.

Not supporting mp3 is silly, but the music streaming service makes the nature of that play obvious.

I will be extremely surprised if that's still true in a year.

I imagine within the first year we will see DLNA support, along with mp3 and various other formats supported.

If the PS4 doesn't support external storage, why does it have dual USB 3.0?

Does this mean "Doesn't support gaming from external storage," or "Can't hook any storage up, period?"

It means doesn't support external hard drives to use for game installation.

Given the lack of DLNA and even mp3, I wonder what the purpose of connecting an external drive would even be. Given everything else they say, I'm going to assume it means no connecting an external storage device at all (why require safe mode for a USB system update?).

I actually use the DLNA functionality a LOT on my ps3. Hopefully sony will reconsider with time

Really? The DLNA feature became entirely useless to me when they enabled the Cinavia DRM. Now after about 20 minutes, any movie I've bought since early 2011 has had Cinavia protection and I cant watch it over the network from my home media server.

Now I just have a Mac mini running all the time as my home server (with a USB 3 external storage array attached) and run iTunes to an Apple TV set top box.

I would put no MP3s, no DLNA support, and no PS3 blu-ray remotes in the Ugly column. These three are much worse than the items you mentioned as Ugly. Very disappointed Sony. You need to follow Microsoft's lead and pull a 180 on these things.

What a piece of junk of media station this will be if it cannot play your music library.

One of the things if not the most people use their consoles today is as media station in their living room, this means allot of PS owners actually purchased a device just for films and music.

And the PS4 will not be able to play your music? Really?

Music Unlimited is a piece of crap. Sorry Sony but it is. Most Xperia owners removed this or unlocked their phones to do so because nobody uses it in the first place. Its not nice to force users on crappy services nobody wants.

Music Unlimited requires Internet and second, its only available for specific countries, this means it will not work with my music and audio CDs.

I guess no PS4 for me after all. Some of this features are not bad, but removing audio support is completely non sense. I will just get a small Atom computer as media station then or just keep my PS3 forever.

What is next? Remove the browser so people cannot play Youtube musics and are forced to the horrible Music Unlimited service?

This is one of the reasons why consoles WILL never replace true PCs. I have none of this non sense limitations on a 100$ computer, even a 5 years old computer is able to play videos and music fine.

The more I find out how Amazon, Sony, etc, try to sell you great hardware but lock it to their OS and force you on their services, the more im convinced open hardware should come and people should be able to separate software from hardware.

I guess Sony will not advertise anymore that it does everything like they did with the PS3. It seems the Xbox is the one that is going to do everything, possible even run Windows apps in the future.

Some of the Bad/Ugly items exemplify the concept of a "strategy tax" so well it's like the entire concept was designed so we had a useful way of talking about Sony without resorting to sitting upside down in a ditch screaming.

The PS4 uses an internal power supply rather than a bulky external power brick

This is a nice holdover from the PlayStation 3 and an advantage over the Xbox One, which has a power brick that’s actually bigger than the one on the current Xbox 360.

Careful calling that an advantage. The PS4 is already roughly two-thirds the size of an Xbox One. Stuffing a power supply inside means either that Microsoft is overly paranoid about heat or that the PS4 will be about as noisy as a jet engine.

Just so I understand this right, PS4 will not support media streaming via DLNA. Does that mean when I fire up either my NAS or my Windows 7 PC with Media Player Streaming turned on, the PS4 will not be able to play these? Forgive me for not knowing if this is the means by which I've been streaming everything perfectly with the PS3 for years.

You mention that I might "have some other devices hooked up to your TV that do largely the same thing". Like what? Apple TV?

Eliminating the options to be able to leverage a PS4 as a media center is pretty much a deal breaker for me. I loved 'Last of Us', but damn...